


Songs of Captivity and Freedom

by HistoireEternelle



Series: The songs that rhythm our life [4]
Category: La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)
Genre: Berlin lives, Happy Ending, Hurt, M/M, No worries he will be reunited with Martin, Prison, Psychological Torture, Sort Of, Torture, but not in this one, eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:40:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24687031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HistoireEternelle/pseuds/HistoireEternelle
Summary: Their clandestine prison only had one prisoner. Andrés de Fonollosa, better known as Berlin, the only member of the Dalí gang they managed to capture alive. Barely.
Relationships: Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa & Palermo | Martín Berrote, Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa/Palermo | Martín Berrote
Series: The songs that rhythm our life [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774768
Comments: 19
Kudos: 74





	Songs of Captivity and Freedom

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so so sorry about this one. I have no idea what happened.
> 
> You can find the song used in the fic [HERE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXEdzgMvzcA)

“Listen. He’s doing it again,” the guard said when he heard the voice rise in the heavy silence of the cell block.

They didn’t have to wonder who the singer was. Their clandestine prison only had one prisoner. Andrés de Fonollosa, better known as Berlin, the only member of the Dalí gang they managed to capture alive. Barely. Since they brought him here, the only sounds they’d heard from his mouth had been cries and songs. A single song to be precise. Always the same song again and again, night after night.

“He has to stop. I can’t stand it anymore. It breaks my heart every single time,” his colleague said, emotions tinting her voice.

“We tried. No matter what we do, he keeps singing. The _Inspectora_ is not happy, but unless we break his jaw, we can’t make his stop. And you know why he’s here, we need him to be able to speak,” the first guard explained unnecessarily. Both had been there from the beginning.

“Did we finally find what he’s saying?” the woman asked.

“It’s in Latin, that’s all we know.”

The clear voice rose once again, reverberating against the concrete walls, turning the already melancholic song into something heartbreaking. He wouldn’t stop until morning. They knew him by now. It would be another long night.

In his cell Andrés was resting his head on the cold panel on his right. He had barely enough room to stand up and his shoulders brushed against the walls on each side of his body. They put him in the box when they weren’t happy with him and they were less and less happy lately. He still refused to talk, no matter how hard they beat him, he stayed silent. He knew he had to protect his brother and the other members of the gang. But more importantly, he had to protect Palermo. 

From the moment he had opened his eyes after the Mint, he had started to call him Parlermo. He had to get used to it. He had to forget the name Martín Berrote ever existed. Only Palermo existed in his mind. Always Palermo. He imagined blue eyes staring at him and Andrés sighed. He was missing his beautiful _ingeniero_ so much. Sighing again, breathing in the foul air of the box, he closed his eyes and smiled. It was time to serenade his soulmate.

_  
Cum tacent clament (With silence, we shout)  
_ _Cum tacent clament (With silence, we shout)  
_ _Serva ne (Without salvation)  
_ _Servan tuter (He provides our salvation)  
_ _Servan servan tuter (He provides us our salvation)_

  
At first it hadn’t been too bad. He had spent weeks lying in bed, too weak to try to escape. So weak they hadn’t even bothered to restrain him at the time.

A doctor told him he had been shot eight times in the chest, his heart had stopped at least twice before they could stabilize him enough to take him to surgery and remove the bullets. He had been relieved to be alive, at first. It meant he had a chance to escape and find his way back to Martín – Palermo. But as soon as the thought crossed his mind, he realized that everybody was thinking him dead. Palermo included. 

“How long?” he had asked, his voice hoarse after so long without using it.

“Three weeks,” the nurse had replied.

And before she could say anything more, a guard had grabbed her by the arm and he’d never seen her again. He had hoped she would be okay. Once his wounds had healed, they had pumped him full of experimental drugs to try and cure the myopathy. 

A few of them had made him sick, worse than everything he had felt before. Worse than being shot eight times. But not worse than the last look he had seen on Palermo’s face before Helsinki dragged him down the tunnel.

Some made him hallucinate. He had liked those. He would dream of Martín – Palermo he had to remind himself. It could be from their time as friends and those hallucinations had been full of happiness. Or it could be from the time they were lovers and those had been full of passion and heat and would leave him painfully aroused, his heart beating furiously in his chest.

And finally, one day they had stopped injecting these weird looking liquids in his veins and his hands had stopped shaking. Something – or a combination of somethings – must have worked.

They had given him a pair of grey sweatpants, a hoodie of the same color and a pretty pair of shining manacles to tie him up to the rail of his bed. That had been the first time he’d seen the redhead. 

She had introduced herself as Alicia Sierra and he had seen the small bump pushing at the waistband of her pants. If he had thought being pregnant would have softened her, he had been sorely mistaken. That woman was the devil incarnate. A few days after her visit, he had been drugged and moved somewhere else. Somewhere remote. When he had woken up, he had been in the box. 

They had left him there for two days, by his estimation, without food or water. The drugs had made him sick and they had let him wade through his own excrements and vomit for two days. After a while his nose had been accustomed to the stink and his stomach had stopped rebelling.

That’s when they had taken him out of the box and let him shower with warm water and real soap. They even gave him a towel that first time. They had then led him to a regular cell and let him sleep on a small uncomfortable bed. And it had felt like luxury after two days in the box. They even gave him coffee when he woke up. 

Andrés had never been a fool, he knew what they were trying to do. One of Sergio’s unending series of lectures had been on how the police would try to break them if they were caught. So far they were following the manual to the letter. 

He knew they wouldn’t kill him, he was their only link with the rest of the group. But what they were unaware of was that he didn’t know anything. Only Sergio knew the coordinates of each member of the gang.

The first interrogation had been almost pleasant. Alicia – as she wanted to be called – had been all smiles, congratulating him on the masterpiece that was the heist and praising the Professor’s intelligence. Asking if Andrés had helped with the plan and how he had been recruited. 

But Andrés had stayed silent.

He wasn’t going to tell them that his little brother had been the brain behind the heist of the century and that the love of his life and himself had been involved in the selection of their fellow robbers. Of course he would not tell her all that, no matter how nice she thought she was.

He had seen anger and cruelty shine in her eyes when he had refused to talk. And for the first time since he realized he would live, he had feared for his life. But then she had schooled her features, plastered a smile on her face and sent him back to his cell. 

That day, he had been awakened in the middle of the night with a freezing bucket of water thrown at him – bucket and all – while he was peacefully sleeping on his bed. He had been dreaming of Martín – Palermo – he recalled. They had dragged him to a tiled room, stripped him naked and hosed him with enough force to send him to the floor with cold water. Instinctively, his body had curled on itself, protecting the fragile organs in his belly, and his hands on his head, he had cried. His tears hidden by the water that was beating him with the strength of ten men, Andrés had cried.

When he had regained consciousness, he had found himself, still naked, on his soaked bed. The shivers had kept him awake for the rest of the night.

Alicia had come back the next day, and the next. He had seen her belly getting rounder, marking the passage of time. But the questions had stayed the same and when he wouldn’t answer, she would send him back to his cell and the men with the hose would come back each night to hurt him. To try and break him.

They stopped feeding him too. He managed to gulp some of the water they used to hurt him so he would stay alive, but his stomach was hurting so much he couldn’t think of anything else.

When they realized breaking his body wasn’t the solution, they put him in the box to try and break his mind. And that was the moment Andrés started to sing. Each night he would sing the same song over and over until his voice was broken and his tongue as dry as leather in his mouth. 

_  
Dum inter homines (As long as we are among humans)  
_ _Sumus colamus (Let us be)  
_ _Humanitatem (Humane)  
_ _Cum tacent clament (With silence, we shout)_

  
They had started to use electricity as well. After he had passed out from the hose, they would electrocute him to wake him up and start again from the beginning. They didn’t even ask questions anymore. They just brutalized him, hoping he would finally break and talk. They were monsters, nothing more.

In his box, Andrés closed his eyes. He’d been in here for a few hours, but it already felt like years. He had lost the count of how long he had been here, how long since the Mint. How long since he had last seen Parlermo. They never turned the light off. Not in the hallways, not in his cell. But the box was in total darkness. And even if it felt nice on his abused eyes, it scared him. In the dark, he couldn’t see them coming. 

Leaning against the wall, his body barely able to keep him up, Andrés kept his eyes closed. The darkness seemed less oppressive with his eyes closed. He must have fallen asleep because he jerked awake when his knees buckled under his weight, the movement making him gasp with surprise and pain. His whole body was a giant bruise and he was hurting everywhere and all the time. 

He was about to resume his singing when the door suddenly jerked open and strong arms caught him when he fell forward. Those hands were softer than the ones that used to come and bring him to the tiled room. Opening his eyes, Andrés looked at his guards. Ah, he thought to himself, it explains the almost soft touch. He liked those two guards, they weren’t bloodthirsty like the others, they would do their work but not hurt him more than necessary.

They brought him to the showers and sat him on a low stool in the middle of the room. He could see clothes waiting on a bench on the side and Andrés didn’t understand what was happening. He had been naked and filthy since the first time they hosed him and now they were offering him a shower and clothes? Trying to keep in mind what Sergio taught them before the heist, Andrés tried to keep the grateful feelings at bay, but couldn’t stop the tears when the warm water hit his back softly.

They had sat him on the stool and the man was cleaning his abused body carefully while the woman was standing by the door, her back to him, giving him a semblance of privacy. He could feel the shame burning in his chest at the thought of being so weak he couldn’t even shower by himself. 

Once he was clean and warm, they helped him into his clothes and escorted him to his cell, not touching, but ready to catch him if he stumbled. The smell of food waiting for him in his cell almost sent him to his knees. It’d been so long since he had had anything to eat that once again he felt tears in his eyes. 

The guards made sure he was comfortable and stable enough before bringing him his food. It was a simple broth with small pieces of vegetables and meat. Not enough to fill him but sufficient to calm his stomach and suitably light so he could keep it down. 

He didn’t know what was going on, but the meals kept coming and he felt his strength come back with them. After a while, Andrés stopped questioning their motives. He was glad to have warm food in his belly and happy to see the meat on his bones. He didn’t want to think of the price he would pay for such a treatment later. He knew that if they were strengthening him, the next stage of their interrogation would be worse than everything he had endured so far. And he wasn’t sure he was strong enough to keep silent much longer.

He was sleeping when the sound of the door startled him awake, his body jerking painfully, making him groan. Tuning to the door to evaluate what was waiting for him depending on who was at his door, Andrés frowned. He had expected to see the guards or even Alicia – he hadn’t seen her since they took him out of the box – but never _her_.

“ _Señor_ de Fonollosa,” she greeted.

“ _In_ … _Inspectora_ Murillo,” he croaked back, and he heard the gasp of surprise the female guard he liked let out from behind the inspector. It was the first time they heard his voice, except for the cries and singing. 

“Alicia had been reassigned and since we already know each other, they asked me to come and talk to you. They want to see if you could tell me something about your friends.”

She sounded nice, not a trace of cruelty in her voice or her eyes. Andrés knew she had been fired after the heist. She had slept with his brother and they had thought she had been their accomplice from the beginning. Alicia had bragged about it once, saying that the Professor had been really smart about it. He didn’t understand how she could be here.

“How?” he asked and she snorted.

“When they realized Alicia’s methods weren’t working on you, they came looking for me. They had cleaned my name when they realized I really didn’t know who the Professor was. But they couldn’t keep me in the police, so they still fired me. I was traveling through Asia with my daughter and my mother when they came to me. They’re still there, waiting for me,” she explained, her eyes insistent, pleading with him to understand what she wasn’t saying.

“How long?” He didn’t want to believe what he thought she was trying to tell him.

“A year and a half, give or take.”

Andrés nodded silently. He needed just one more piece of information before he could really believe and trust her. Before he could close himself back in silence. He had to find a way to ask about Parlermo. But he didn’t have to.

“When they finally found me, I was scuba diving in Bangladesh. St. Martin’s Island is beautiful this time of the year. So if you would be nice enough to talk and give me the information they want, I’d be happy to go back and enjoy the beach,” she said, a smile on her lips and Andrés sighed, the tension leaving his shoulders. 

He could feel his heart beating faster in his chest. Martín was alive, and Sergio was getting him out with the unexpected help of the _Inspectora_. 

“I’ll let you think about it and I’ll come back tomorrow to see what you have to say. Rest assured that no more harm will be done to you. You have my word,” she added, a hand on his shoulder, when she was sure he had understood what she was saying. She frowned when he recoiled slightly at her touch, but couldn’t say she was surprised. She knew Alicia’s methods. 

Once again, Andrés closed his eyes and let the images of Martín’s face he repressed for so long – a year and a half as it seemed – invade his mind and let the tears come. He would see him again. Soon. Taking a deep breath, he started to sing.  
  


_Dum inter homines (As long as we are among humans)  
_ Sumus colamus (Let us be)  
_Humanitatem (Humane)  
_Cum tacent clament (With silence, we shout)  
  


In the corridor, flanked by the two guards, Raquel stopped dead in her tracks when she heard Andrés’ voice rise in the oppressing silence of the prison. The sorrow and hope in his voice was breaking her heart.

“Does he do that often?” she asked.

“He used to. He stopped when we put him back in his cell and stopped torturing him. But I’ve never heard him sing like that before. It feels like he found hope again,” the guard explained.

Raquel chose to stay silent, she couldn’t jeopardize their plan to get him out by saying something she shouldn’t. Andrés would be reunited with Martín and her small dysfunctional family would be whole again. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really sorry...
> 
> If you want to talk, you can find me on [Tumblr](https://histoireeternelle.tumblr.com/)


End file.
